Love In Idleness
by hirondelle-Rae
Summary: That's how the world works.


_You're just a little boy, awkward and clumsy, searching for some kind of grace. You think you're everyone's best friend, everyone's saviour and suffering hero, but you're not and never will be. You see things in black and white, evil and good, but the world doesn't work that way._

_Grace is a myth and life's chessboard is only shifting grey._

* * *

"What are you looking at, Pansy? Pansy?"

She hears the note of displeasure in his voice and starts, mentally shaking herself back to reality, and simpers at him. "Why, nothing, Draco."

His gaze follows the path that hers took mere moments before, and hardens. "That doesn't look like nothing to me."

"That's because you let him get under your skin too much," she snaps, then realises her mistake.

His mouth curls into that insufferable smirk he's been perfecting from the cradle. "And you? What have you been letting him get under?"

His lewd remark has her digging her nails into the palms of her hands. A breath. Easy. Another. Sometimes she could hate him, but –

"He's nothing. He's less than nothing. He's a Gryffindor."

"Gryffindors are scum," he says lazily.

Sometimes they are almost friends.

* * *

Sometimes they have sex.

He always falls asleep on her immediately after, but she doesn't mind, or care. Skimming her fingertips over the silk of his rapidly cooling skin, she is sated enough to believe that this is all she wants, that this is all there is. This is her benefit from her association with Draco; that, and the awe duly given for being part of the Malfoy's inner circle, and the shot at the Malfoy fortune, and her father's hopes –

She lowers her chin, looks coolly at the white-gold spill of his hair over her breasts. Yes. She thinks of him in terms of benefits, and she knows he does the same for her.

That's how the world works.

* * *

Thursday morning after Potions she's gathering her things to leave when he comes running back into the classroom. They collide, hard, and she lets out a screech as papers and vials go flying everywhere.

"What the fuck?" she snarls, swatting her hair out of her eyes. Her bottom is starting to throb and her wrist is numb where she struck it on a table, but she's had worse.

"Sorry, Parkinson."

She stares up at him, loathing. "With four eyes you'd think you could _see_."

"I _said _I was sorry. Here."

"What?"

"I'm helping you up," he says, exasperation creeping into his voice.

He's holding his hand out to her, and a suffocating feeling is rising in her chest. So she grabs at his hand and digs her nails into him with all her strength – because she _can_ – and he snatches it back the instant she's back on her feet, muffling a curse.

"What was that for?" he demands, his green eyes glinting as she gathers up her things again.

"Wanker." She tosses it at him like a Quaffle, and walks out.

She doesn't look back.

* * *

That afternoon in her dorm there's a slip of folded paper mixed up with her Potions homework. The slightly messy handwriting is unfamiliar, but it doesn't take a genius to guess.

She holds it up between her fingers, her own hesitation taking her by surprise. Knowledge is power, as any Slytherin knows, and yet – there is something terribly naked about it, trembling in her grasp like a captive butterfly.

But she knows he would have done the same in her place, and so she remembers to sneer as she unfolds it. She imagines it's his soul she's tearing open, crease by crease, and she isn't too far wrong.

* * *

"Give it back," he says quietly. He's stopped her just outside the Slytherin common room, on her way to meet her girls for a quick smoke behind the broom shed.

She gives him her best look of disdain. "You ought to be more careful with your things."

"Look, Parkinson – _please_."

She nearly laughs. Tapping her cheek with a finger, she scrunches up her nose. "Let me think, Potter – _no_."

His lips seem to pale. "You've read it."

"You would have done the same."

"No, I –"

"You're a liar and a hypocrite." She begins to walk past him, but he catches her wrist and she whirls on him, easily breaking his loose grip, furious.

"Don't _touch_ me."

"I need it back."

"Why?" Her mocking smile is diamond-bright and cutting. "Do you _love_ her, Potter?"

There is a silence, then – "I do," he breathes.

This time, she laughs in his face. She feels it stick in her throat but she forces it out anyway, leaning in, loud. "You're so stupid," she says. "All you Gryffindors – stupid."

"Are you done?" Frustration is getting the better of him, and it's a coppery taste on her tongue.

"Just remember to check that the sprog is yours. It's not unheard of."

Now he's furious. "Don't you speak that way about her. You don't know anything –"

"And you do?" She glares back at him. "_You_ don't know anything. You'd like to believe I'm evil, wouldn't you? You swan around in your red and gold, Dumbledore-d world and you _have no idea_ of what goes on beyond your own goddamn glasses, do you?

"Listen, _little boy_," she hisses, shoving her face close to his and sneering as he jerks back, "little boys shouldn't play in the real world. If you're half the hero you think you are, you'd tell her yourself."

A beat, they are both frozen where they stand, black eyes boring into green. And then she remembers to breathe, the air clears her mind, and even if she's not quite sure what she just said she tosses her hair over her shoulder and stalks away.

He gives her a wary look as he lets her pass.

* * *

Dinnertime at the Slytherin table is quiet, but the rest of the Great Hall isn't. The Gryffindor table is the loudest, ever since their wonder boy walked in hand in hand with his glory princess. She winces irritably as another raucous cheer goes up from the uncultured group.

Beside her, Draco is uncharacteristically silent. She simpers at him, partly out of habit, and partly because she knows it annoys him. "Draco? What are you looking at?"

He doesn't hear her, or pretends, and she follows his gaze to where Potter and Weasley sit, his arm slung around her slim shoulders, surrounded by well-wishers and gossips and Seamus Finnigan cracking off-colour jokes.

As she watches, Potter leans down, whispers something in her ear, and Weasley blushes.

There is a sharp stab of something just left of her heart, and as she grits her teeth to breathe through the sudden smallness of her lungs, she sees Draco's hand tighten on his goblet, and understands.

"Gryffindors are scum," she says casually, and he turns towards her.

"They are that," he agrees, his cool grey eyes sardonic.

The pale glint of the lights reflected in his dark pupils reminds her of the paper that she's slotted in a half-forgotten folder, unable to throw and unwilling to keep. A hasty handwritten note never meant for her, but which made her wonder, for a few seconds, or hope –

But she knows that hope is for fools, and tonight she will squeeze panting beneath him yet again, and she will remember.

This is the way the world works. This is all there is.


End file.
